Don't you cry
by Lili107
Summary: She had secrets. Lots of secrets. But she didn't want to tell anyone. She didn't have anyone to tell. It didn't matter anyway, because… No one noticed her. Even to the very end.


'**CROSS THE LINE'**

She went through the doors of school with her head down, as usual. But from the corner of her eye, she saw a big red van with 2 words written on the side.  
'Challenge Day'  
Right. She rolled her eyes.  
These 'challenge day' people were supposed to come and change everyone into liking everyone else, or something along those lines of crap.  
As if a cheerleader could become friends with a band geek.  
It was never gonna work.  
Never in a million years.  
Those kinds of things didn't happen.  
Like Ever.  
High School cliques would always be there.  
Different cliques ignored each other.  
That's just the way it was.  
She knew first-hand what it was like to be ignored.  
By everyone.  
She didn't belong to a clique.  
She didn't fit.  
Not even with the misfits.  
And in high school, belonging to a clique was essential.  
No matter how pathetic that clique was.  
You had to belong somewhere.  
She didn't belong to any clique.  
She didn't belong.  
She might as well not have existed.  
That was how it had always been.  
And that was the way it would always be.

"Come on in!" yelled the perky woman. "Come in! Make yourself comfortable! You are in for a big day, so you might as well smile while you're at it!"  
Her classmates thundered into the room yelling and playing and pushing and laughing.  
The cheerleaders and the jocks up front, with the misfits/punks bringing up the rear.  
She went in a few minutes after them, just before the doors were closed.  
She was going to ditch, but she didn't have anything better to do, and anyway, she wanted to hear what all this fuss was about.  
"Alright everyone." Said a man with long black dreads, wearing a bright red shirt. "Get your butts in those chairs, and stop your chattering! You'll have plenty of time for that in a minute."  
The talking died down as people found chairs with their cliques.  
She stood alone by the wall.  
There were no more chairs.  
No one noticed her.  
But she had gotten used to it by now.  
It didn't even bother her anymore.  
"First off, we're gonna play some games! So I want everyone to grab a partner as fast as you can. But make sure it's someone you do not talk to on a regular basis. That part is essential! Alright let's go!"  
There was lots of shuffling and laughing as people went around searching for partners. Friends tried to pair up with each other until they were caught out.  
Eventually, everyone had someone.  
She was alone.  
No one noticed.  
"Alright, the first game we're gonna play is called, 'Hi'. Just turn to your partner and say hi!"  
There was a chorus of 'Hi' all over the hall.  
She didn't say hi to anyone.  
No one noticed.  
"Hey! That went well. See. Not hard to say 'hi' is it? Now before you carry on, I want you to say 'Hi' to your partner every day after today. Think you can do that? Good. Now, I want you to look at your partner and tell them a secret. It doesn't have to be anything deep. Just a little secret about yourself. Go on."  
There was some silence, and then people started talking. It went on for a while.  
She had secrets.  
Lots of secrets.  
But she didn't want to tell anyone.  
Which was good, because…  
No one noticed her.  
The games went on.  
The hugging game  
The no-touching game.  
The butt-bumping game.  
Everyone had fun.  
Except her.  
No one noticed.  
Finally, the games ended.  
"All right!" Yelled the blonde women, "It's time to go to your assigned groups. You were all given a group number before you came in, so now I want you to find that number and sit in a circle with your groups.  
There was shuffling and talking and some partners were doing some final hugs.  
She looked at her hand.  
She was number 7.  
She shrugged.  
She stayed in her corner.  
The groups all sat together.  
But number 7 was missing someone.  
No one noticed  
"So before we start this exercise, I want us to think about something. How much do you know the person you're sitting next to? Do you know their name? Their parents name? Their siblings? Their past? Do you know they're story? All of it? I bet you don't. So why are we so quick to judge each other. Why are we always judging people by what they look like when you don't know what they have been through in their life? "She let that sink in for a while.  
Then the dreadlocks guy came with a picture of an iceberg.  
"I want everyone to take a good look at this iceberg. This iceberg is you. It's quite obvious that what we see, is nothing. Nothing at all compared to what it really is. You don't know the iceberg until you dive under water. Problem is, how many people are willing to dive under water for you? That is what today is about. We are all going t be diving under water, and finding the rest of the iceberg."  
"So, this exercise is called, "If You Really Knew Me.". The woman's voice had changed from friendly and perky to friendly and serious. "This is where you really open up to the people in you group. Each person in your group is going to share something about themselves. Whether it is about your personal home life, or your personal school life. Something personal that you don't talk about, but really need to share. And I promise you, you will feel so much better afterwards."  
It was awkward at first. No one wanted to talk. But then one brave person from each would start talking.  
They would tell everyone their story.  
They would open up like they had never opened up before.  
Then the next person.  
Then the next.  
Everyone opening up about their feelings.  
She had feelings too.  
Felling that needed to be shared.  
No one noticed.  
She could hear snatches of other peoples story.  
_"My Dad left us last year."  
"My best friend died in a car accident, and I survived."  
"I've been diagnosed with cancer."_  
Before long most people were in tears.  
Even the boys cried.  
Tough jocks were sobbing.  
She didn't cry.  
She wasn't allowed to cry.  
Crying was a sign of weakness.  
That's what her mother had taught her.  
More tears.  
More stories.  
She heard it all from her corner.  
She started thinking about her own story.  
She shut her eyes tight. She didn't _want_ to think about her own story.  
The dream she had every night.  
But it came, and she thought about it.

"_Make her stop crying!"_

That was the one sentence she heard over and over again.  
A dream of the night she was born  
Whether it was real or not, was a mystery.  
But it felt really, fucking real.  
And so did the rest of her pathetic life after that night.  
And reluctantly, she let herself remember…

"_Make it stop crying!" yelled her mother. "It can't cry, it's too loud."  
The baby carried on crying. It couldn't help it. Baby's always cried after being born.  
But this baby wasn't allowed to cry.  
"Linda, it's a girl!"  
"I don't care! Just make it stop crying! I didn't want it in the first place! Make it stop!  
"It was true. Linda hadn't wanted this baby. You see, Linda was a prostitute.  
And the baby was just a mistake. It wasn't supposed to happen. And if Linda's Pimp found out, Linda would lose her job.  
She had managed to convince him that she was just gaining a lot of weight .And he had bought it.  
This job was the only thing keeping Linda from starving, and now there was this baby to take care of. And now she had to get rid of it.  
But how? She couldn't just put it on an orphanage doorstep. She was never allowed out of the house.  
So she had no choice but to keep it.  
To keep the baby she never wanted.  
She kept it hidden in her room.  
And stuck in a closet whenever clients came over.  
And all the while, it wasn't allowed to cry.  
The baby grew into a child.  
A child that had to watch her mother be with hundreds of men every day.  
A child that was exposed to things no child should even know about.  
A child that was treated like dirt by its mother, just because it had been a mistake.  
A child that was completely broken by the time it was 10 years old.  
And all the while it wasn't allowed to cry.  
The child was 12 when it decided that it had seen enough of its mother's job.  
It climbed out of the window and never looked back.  
It found refuge in an orphanage where it found it easy to be invisible.  
The child never again thought about its mother.  
Never… in its conscious mind.  
But its subconscious was plagued with continuous dreams of not being allowed to cry.  
And besides, the mother probably never gave the child a second thought.  
She probably didn't even know it was gone.  
She didn't notice.  
_

She let out a deep breath she didn't know she was holding.  
She was back in the present.  
She wasn't a child anymore.  
She wasn't an' 'it'.

"Alright then." It was the blonde woman talking, "Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you for sharing, for opening up. Sure it wasn't easy. But it was necessary for you to move on. Move on from what has happened to you. Don't let it run your life forever. It won't happen overnight, you won't do it alone. You have friends, who love you, who will be there for you. Who will be there for you when you cry. Who will tell you that it's okay to cry!"

She scowled.  
But She didn't cry.  
She never cried.  
She wasn't allowed to cry.  
The woman was wrong.  
First, She didn't have any friends.  
No one cared about Her messed up life.  
No one cared about Her.  
No one noticed.

"So," said the guy with dreads, "It is now time for what we call the Power Shuffle. Now I want everyone to come and stand behind this blue line."  
Everyone stood up and made their way over to the line.  
She stayed right where She was.  
She didn't want to do move.  
She buried her head into her shoulders, squeezing her eyes shut and shutting out the entire world.  
But this time, She couldn't let this activity pass.  
People bumped into Her, pushing her along with the crowd making their way to the blue line.  
She tried to escape the flood of people around Her, but before long, She found Herself pushed to the front of the line. She hesitantly looked around.  
Lot's of people were crying.  
Hugging their friends and sobbing.  
She didn't hug anyone.  
She didn't sob into anyone's shoulder.  
No matter how much she wanted to.  
No matter how much she needed to.  
She didn't cry.  
No one noticed.  
"Okay. This is the Power Shuffle. You see two blue lines here. This is how this game works. I am going to call a certain category, and if you qualify, or if you have experienced what I'm talking about, you cross the line."  
She scowled even more.  
First they wanted her to cry.  
Now they wanted her to basically let everyone know her pathetic life story.  
She looked for a way to get out of this, but She was blocked all the way around.  
"I want you to cross the line if anyone in your family has ever died of, AIDS, Cancer, or any other terminal illness."  
Dozens of kids crossed the line.  
She stayed put.  
"Cross the line if you are a woman, and have been treated unfairly, or inappropriately by any man."  
"Cross the line you were ever yelled at, commented upon, whistled at, touched or harassed by a

Man in a public place."  
Every single girl in the room crossed.  
They'd all been hit on by old people.  
They'd all been checked out by random dudes.  
They'd all been groped or felt up against their will.  
They'd all been treated inappropriately.  
So they all crossed.  
All except Her.  
She hadn't been treated inappropriately by a guy.  
She'd never been treated any way by a guy.  
She didn't know whether to feel hurt or lucky.  
But anyway,  
No one noticed  
"Please cross the line if you ever feel alone, or like no one is there for you."

"Please Cross the line if you or any other family member has had a problem with drug or alcohol abuse"

"Please cross the line if you have ever had to experience a parent, sibling or loved one get abused.

"Please cross the line if you never knew your biological family."

People crossed.  
This time She was among them.  
All four times.  
People cried.

"_Make it stop crying!"_

She didn't cry.  
She wouldn't.  
"Please cross the line if you have ever hurt yourself on purpose."  
4 people crossed.  
She was among them.  
They all cried.

"_Make it stop crying!"_

She didn't.  
She looked down at her wrists.  
Gaping at the small razor cuts, as if She didn't remember putting them there.  
She walked back fast.  
Her eyes shut.  
Keeping in the tears.

"_Make it stop crying!"_

A lump in her throat the size of a melon.  
A lump that had been building up for 17 years.  
But she refused to cry.  
"Please cross the line if you never had a childhood."  
Her eyes flew open. Wide as dinner plates.

"_Make it stop crying!"_

No one crossed.  
She gasped, trying as hard as she could to keep the tears in.  
She let out a long, low whine.  
Like an animal desperate to be seen.  
And she was, wasn't she.  
An animal.  
Desperate to be noticed.  
"Don't be scared," said the woman, who seemed to be staring right at Her. "Cross the line if for any reason, you were never able to play outside. To laugh and have fun with other kids. Don't be scared."  
She was shocked.  
The woman was describing her childhood exactly.  
She was urging her to show her feelings.  
But most importantly, she was looking straight as Her.  
No one had _ever_ looked straight at Her.  
No one.  
And now this blond stranger wanted to make her cross the line… and cry.  
She couldn't.  
She wouldn't.

She turned around and pushed her way through the crowd.  
She pushed people roughly out of her way,  
Her eyes wide and afraid.  
Afraid to cry.

"_Make it stop crying!"_

She pushed through, finally getting through the sea of bodies and tears.  
She bolted straight for the doors, pushed them open and ran.  
Ran through the school corridors, out onto the football fields.  
She ran and ran, Her eyes still wide.  
Not daring to blink.

She ran until she got onto the road.  
She tripped over her shoelaces, rolling on the tarmac.  
She landed on her knees, and she crouched down.  
Not once did she blink.  
She bit her bottom lip, holding in a sob that had been wanting to escape for 17 years.  
Her teeth drew blood from her lip.  
She didn't care.

She was crouched in the middle of the road, trying to block out the sound of someone yelling at her.  
She heard a loud noise.  
And vibrations coming from the ground she was on.  
She shifted her head slightly,  
And saw the huge wheels coming at her.

The truck driver was paying close attention at the road.  
He was driving past the local High School.  
Careful as usual.  
But it was the middle of the school day.  
No one would be out.  
Which is why it was strange to see a bunch of kids running out of the school.  
A blonde woman with a red T shirt was yelling.  
At him.  
He couldn't hear her from the road.  
But he soon realized what she wanted.  
She wanted him to stop for the girl lying on the road.  
But he didn't stop.  
It was too late.  
He didn't notice Her. 


End file.
